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by CHACONIAC from CHICAGO

Last Post 11 days, 20 hours Ago


Teenaged Drivers
Aug 21, 2007 | 3:56 PM
Category: News
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Greetings all:

The strongest reactions to the teenaged driving story was not from young people, it was from parents.

They told me that the hardest thing they had ever done was to send a child out to solo with his or her new drivers license.  These are parents who spent months of seat time next to their teens, watching their reactions and judgments...letting them rack up experience and watching what kind of mistakes they made. They told me that the most frightening thing was that, even after weeks of careful and competent driving, their teen would suddenly pull a bonehead move that defied explanation.

Every parent I talked to is convinced that teenaged brains are just different, half-baked, still in the process of building important neurological pathways...and apparently subject to occasional hiccups.  These new laws are aimed at getting those hiccups out of the way before they turn into disastrous wrecks.

Another note: one father of 6 said his kids have widely varying degrees of driving aptitude...and even with the same levels of instruction there are people who simply are never going to be good drivers. How's that for scary?

One of the best ideas I've seen is in a story I did a few months back called "Crash-Proofing Your Teenager".  Driving instructors at the Autobahn Racetrack in Joliet have a program that puts young people through skidding maneuvers, emergency braking and obstacle avoidance...all in a safe and controlled environment.  They say getting comfortable with the way cars respond to snow, ice or hard braking or steering can save lives.

I happen to have been one of those kids that loved driving from the get-go...always the kid in charge of driving the rest of the group... had a good sense of direction, knew where I was, enjoyed the mechanics of driving and have never lost the joy of it. I hope your kid is the same way.

Regards,

Lilia

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Member Comments Total Comments: 5
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devildog67 read my blog
Aug 21, 2007 | 6:01 PM

They don't want to give the children of today the privilge to drive but are willing to give it to all the ILLEGAL ALIENS. What's the deal with that ? These are American Children, not ILLEGAL ALIENS. They are the future, they are the ones who will fight the next wars, I think ever young man should serve his country. Then when he returns he will be a man and appreciates what we have here in this country after he see how the rest of the world lives, I know I did.
CHACONIAC read my blog view my photos
Aug 22, 2007 | 3:31 PM

Dear Devildog:
What are you talking about? Did you read the blog or watch any of these stories? Your comments have nothing to do with new teen driving laws.
Lilia
John8 read my blog
Aug 23, 2007 | 1:23 PM

I have no problem with teens driving. I think the parents need drive more responsibility because the children are learning their bad habits!

I can remember years ago the State of Illinois us to advertise to be courteous driver. Since they stopped that campaign, every drive like they are a NASCAR drive and with the “Me First Syndrome”.

You can not drive the speed limit on any of the Freeways or Tollways and be safe anymore. When I am going 70 mph in the fast lane and people are passing me on the right lane giving me looks you would not believe makes me wonder what is wrong with this picture. Last Sunday I was driving on 57 and 294 at 65 mph in the pouring rain and people around me were passing me up at unsafe speeds not to mention the tailgating they were doing.

John
Sk8ingCoach read my blog
Aug 25, 2007 | 9:16 AM

My son will be 11 soon, so that means only 5 more years! I have already started talking to him about driving, just trying to get him to notice things as he rides along with me.

"What's the speed limit on this road?" "Am I going over or under the speed limit?", etc.

Learning in life never stops, so requiring more hours and experience for teenagers is a good thing. Re-training older drivers might not be a bad idea either! I wouldn't mind taking a refresher course...
AvatarOfUrDreams read my blog view my photos
Aug 31, 2007 | 10:33 PM

I understand that teeny-bopper brains are still developing but I know just as many 50+ people JUST IN MY FAMILY that should have their drivers license taken away from them.

My aunt is totally incapable of driving because she spends too much time thinking about how to react to other people so by the time the situation is over she is still thinking about how to deal with it.

She realizes that she needs to plan too much to cope with the second by second decisions of being on the road, let alone a highway where everyone is going 75 mph, so now she is SCARED which only leads to MORE drag time on her reactions and causes horrible over reactions...

My Godfather is in at LEAST 1 accident a year... A L L are his fault... He has wrecked more cars then I can count in his life and yet no one says a word because he is a "Grown Up".

I know that kid's can fook around and do some stupid things just for the thrill of it but sometimes a crappy driver will ALWAYS be a crappy driver...

My father is a truck driver and comes home EVERY DAY with tails of how "Blond Teeny-boppers in little red sports cars" are too busy talking on their cell phone, singing to the radio, or doing their makeup to realize that they almost slid underneith his tractor trailer...

It seems like EVERYONE on the road has decided that THEY NEED TO GO FIRST and won't let his truck merge or cut him off so they can squeeze 1 foot further then they would have been if they would have just stayed in their lane...

Why can't we talk about THOSES @$$HOLES that are from 18 - 75 years old?
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CHACONIAC

I'm a long-time reporter at Fox News with more than 25 years of journalism experience. In the course of my travails and travels I have worked in wires, newspapers and television, in Chicago and Albuquerque. Probably the most important lesson in all this a healthy respect for the great many ways there are to live life on our round planet...the second most important lesson is never wear high heels to a gang war. That's the thing about chasing news for a living...sometimes you have to run!

Member Since: 9/6/2006


 

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